Then the focus shifts to Guy Carbonneau’s press scrum. In shirtsleeves and sweating profusely, Carbonneau is asked if his greatest coaching achievement has been successfully motivating Kovalev. Carbo starts to answer, but I woke up.

Meaning?

I have no clue … unless the kites represent the lofty aspirations of Canadiens fans eight days ago.

That’s when the team easily beat the New York Islanders to move within three points of Ottawa in the Eastern Conference standings.

But a week ago Canadiens lost to the Rangers.

Tuesday they beat the Senators, who were playing without Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley but still mounted a third-period comeback.

Thursday night at the Bell Centre, Canadiens lost ignominiously to one of the worst team in the NHL.

And then they went to Ottawa.

I’ll not dwell on last night’s game. It was on RDS and the CBC, so most everyone saw it.

In the wilds of Kanata where no one could hear the screams, Heatley, Alfredsson and Jason Spezza bent our first-place aspirants over a log.

And if you think that metaphor is ugly or inappropriate, you didn’t see the game.

I don’t know why Carbo broke up his best defence pairing. But Mike Komisarek and Francis Bouillon started the game, and ach of them was minus-two before the game was two minutes old.

The Tomas Plekanec line started against Spezza et al – and that was a mismatch. Ottawa pressured Plekanec all through the game, forcing him to make hasty decisions and errant passes. You can bet that technique will be employed by other teams.

The power play scored once in seven opportunities. The best player on the ice when Canadiens had the man advtantage was Chris Kelly, who plays for Ottawa.

Adding inury to insult, Wade Redden, pissed-off by all the trade speculation in Ottawa, took itout on Sergei Kostitsyn.

Glimmers of hope? Not many.

Carey Price was OK. The reunited Saku Koivu line had its moments – but Christopher Higgins is having less luck scoring than I used to on Crescent St. Canadiens hit the goalposts five times. Roman Hamrlik will be back soon.

No need to panic – yet. Teams and their fans survive the long NHL season by not getting too high or too low.

You’re correct in that he should not be exempt from criticizm… but his fair share of criticizm, though.

I don’t see anyone asking why Komisarek only played 7 shifts in the second period, and 6 in the third… for a total of 4 minutes of ice time, and only 16 minutes for the entire game. Was he injured? Ill? Benched for poor play earlier in the game? Given that Komi was MIA for most of the night, someone had to eat up those minutes.

The way that some folks bash him, you’d think that he was making Markov/Hamrlik-type money and was expected to be of the same calibre. He’s getting paid $700,000 and that’s the return of value that we should expect from him.

In a weird, twisted way I kind of hope that he finds his way out of the lineup. It would then be interesting to see who the Brisebois bashers spew their venom on after a poor defensive effort when they realize that their favourite whipping boy wasn’t even on the ice.
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______________________________________“All bow down before the Komisaurus Rex!”